Lies, damn lies and statistics. The BLS has changed the way it measures unemployment to make direct comparison with the '70s difficult and now has excluded food from the CPI because it's not like you need to eat yet you have to have a smart phone - sarc off. Like the commenter above, I go to shadowstats for information that hasn't been modified by Obama's minions.

We're all guilty of 58.10, as is every minority member of Congress and the state legislatures, because if they'd just get with the program and think lovely thoughts instead of pointing out the inadequacies of the super-majority's legislative policies and programs, these bad numbers would not happen.

There is a fundamental conflict of interest in having the government calculate the numbers by which it determines how to pay out social security and how multi-year contracts are calculated. This cooking of the books may be even more corrosive to politics and American values than having public sector unions vote for the people who sit on the other side of the negotiating table when it comes time to decide what they will be paid.

I've read in a few credible places that if unemployment and inflation were still being calculated the way it was in the Carter administration, we've been running in double digits for both for 5 years.

I like the Oreo cookie inflation rate myself. It's been running at double or more the government reported rate for all my life (I'm 50). The idea is to take a finished product that isn't changing (Oreo cookie; twinkle, although they've gotten smaller recently; Fig Newton; #2 pencil, etc.), and look at the way its price changes to measure the change in the value of the dollar. By choosing such a product you're getting a lot of information; costs of energy, build food, labor, transportation, equipment maintenance, etc. all wrapped up in one price. You just have to watch out for a change in the way it's made, because if they come up with a more efficient way to make the item you've picked, that can reduce the price without a reduction in an external cost (if they somehow started making your item with 50% less energy, a price drop in the item can occur without an underlying price drop in the energy costs). So it's important to pick an item that has been made the same way for a long time.

So a quick way to reduce both government spending and food prices would be to eliminate all federal subsidies for farming, decrease the calories paid for by WIC and food stamps and SocSec to the bare minimum to avoid starvation, and make Obamacare cost more for a higher BMI?

I say we go for it, and let the biggest loser get the lowest insurance price, the entitlements dry up, and the farmers farm.

May I suggest standard sized paperclips? The process is so efficient (and has been for decades) it gets used as an example of "Six Sigma" -- as in, it's one of teh few things that HAS to run at six sigma acceptance to make a profit. The scrap rate on paperclips is so low and teh profit margin so tight as to require that, becuase it's pretty much a perfected process.